


I Want No World

by BrighteyedJill



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, I shook a witcher and intergenerational trauma fell out, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Nonconathon Treat, Rape/Non-con Elements, Self-Blame, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, Tentacle Monsters, Tentacle Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:01:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24971236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrighteyedJill/pseuds/BrighteyedJill
Summary: Nothing much matters to Eskel since Geralt's death. An encounter with an unusual monster makes him remember what it's like to feel.
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Tentacle Monster/Eskel
Comments: 21
Kudos: 118
Collections: Nonconathon 2020





	I Want No World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hobbitdragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/gifts).



> Yes, the title is from an ee cummings poem. It's tentacle porn with feelings, people. Thanks to some_stars for the beta assistance!

“You certain you can handle this, witcher?” the alderman asked as he gave Eskel a skeptical look up and down. “We used to have another one of your kind come around every year or two, always did his work well for a fair wage. But I don’t like the look of you.”

“Few do.” Eskel’s ferocious visage hadn’t inspired trust even before he’d begun neglecting his gear and his appearance. He hadn’t shaved in several days, dried monster ichor stained his pauldrons, and his breeches were spattered with mud from the bog he’d tromped through yesterday. Vesemir would have called him a disgrace. Eskel couldn’t find the will to give a shit.

“Martha, what was his name?” The alderman had turned to his wife, who stood glaring at Eskel from the doorway.

“The White Wolf, Geralt of Rivia. Like in the song,” she said, looking down her nose at Eskel. “Now that was a proper witcher.”

“That’s the one.” The alderman turned back to Eskel. “We’d rather have him.”

“He’s dead.” The words came out flatly, just a statement of fact. Geralt was dead, and he could do neither these people nor anyone else any good.

“That’s too bad.” The alderman did look disappointed, though not as upset as he should have, by Eskel’s measure. The White Wolf, as renowned as he had been, was just another witcher to them, after all, and not worth mourning. “You seem like a poor substitute.”

Eskel agreed, of course, but that was beside the point. “You want me to take care of your monster or not?”

“I suppose,” the alderman sighed. “If you’re capable of it. That monster’s a wiley thing. The smith’s boy saw it in the woods to the north of town.”

“Fine.” Eskel walked away, not even bothering to haggle over his price. Coin ran through his hands like water nowadays, and he didn’t bother to keep track of it. He turned towards the inn’s stable before he remembered there was no need. He’d sold Scorpion two weeks ago to pay a gambling debt. The horse was certain to be better off with a new master, anyway. Eskel hadn’t been earning enough to keep a fine beast like that in adequate food and shelter. He started trudging north on foot.

Another time, Eskel would have questioned witnesses from the village to learn what he was dealing with, and perhaps stopped to mix some potions or set up a trap. But there wasn’t much point. He had few enough supplies left that he carried them all with him. He didn’t have the ingredients for any more elixirs, and didn’t intend to spend the energy gathering them. If he died, the villagers would be disappointed, but not surprised. They’d petition the king to send an army detachment, and yes, some of the men would die, but they’d kill the thing, whatever it was, eventually. The world didn’t really need witchers anymore. It certainly didn’t need Eskel, whose gruesome face fed into the locals’ fear of witchers wherever he went, who’d only managed a handful of contracts this year, who dulled the pain with fisstech when he could get it, alcohol when he couldn’t.

Eskel passed into the darkened gloom of the woods and began scanning the ground for tracks that looked out of place. The loam here was moist, but still hard from last night’s frost. The snows would come soon. Eskel wouldn’t go back to Kaer Morhen, he decided. Not this year, and likely not ever again. What was left there for him? Vesemir, who pretended Geralt’s death was just another unfortunate but unremarkable occurrence, same as every witcher before him, as if Geralt hadn’t been twined so deep in Eskel’s heart that Eskel was bleeding to death in his absence. Perhaps some witcher he didn’t know, refugee from a shattered brotherhood, who would say brightly, “Oh, you knew Geralt?” and expect some lighthearted stories about the exploits of the White Wolf. Or Lambert, who now knew Eskel better than anyone living, a pathetic state of affairs. He would look at Eskel with eyes that said, “You’re not better than me anymore. No one loves you, either.”

The snapping of a twig made Eskel turn his head. A blur of movement swept past him, something large, and Eskel dodged sluggishly to the side. The monster’s appendage caught his shoulder and spun him around. He staggered and thrust out his left hand, already forming Aard. The responses were automatic: drilled into him in childhood and set indelibly by decades and decades on the Path. The thing wrapped a paw?--trunk?--around his hand before he could release the Sign. But instincts carried him through again. Eskel was already turning, drawing his blade. He raised his sword and saw the thing--huge and hulking in the gloom of the forest, a writhing mass of confusing, blunt limbs moving in all different directions.

There was a moment, when the thing reached for his sword that Eskel could have parried. His reflexes were well-honed and automatic, after all. But a thought struck him, as he watched the fleshy appendage bearing down, that he could… not. He could stand here and let the thing kill him. He wouldn’t have to fight anymore. He wouldn’t have to stumble through his days, one town like any other, just a different kind of monster blood to wash off his sword. No friendly face that might be waiting for him somewhere on the Path. No one to touch him or smile at him. No one who knew him as more than just a witcher. Nothing but endless, grinding duty stretching ahead into another century. And if he just didn’t move his sword, it could be over.

Eskel shifted his grip, tensing for the parry, but something hit him in the back of the head. He pitched forward, and as his vision went black, he thought, _At last_.

Unfortunately, Eskel woke again. The moon had risen, which meant he’d been out for hours. He lay on his back, seeing the sky through breaks in the overhanging trees. His body felt strange. Had he been injured? Perhaps he was actually dead, in which case this was an even shittier afterlife than he’d imagined. He tried to move, but found himself held in place.

A warm circle of flesh held his wrists above his head, straining his shoulders just enough for Eskel to be aware of the pain, which meant he was still alive. Damn. That discomfort led him to notice that small twigs and rocks were poking into the skin of his back and his legs. He was naked. A quick scan of the surrounding clearing showed Eskel his clothes and equipment--including his swords--piled haphazardly under a tree. His boots dropped from a height and landed next to the pile.

Eskel followed their path upwards to the hulking shape that loomed before him. The monster rose to nearly the height of the trees. Its shapeless mass seemed composed solely of blunt, squamous tentacles, piled upon each other like a knot of snakes. It was like no monster Eskel had ever seen before, or even read about.

 _Something for the journal_ , he thought, before he remembered he wasn’t going back to Kaer Morhen, and if he had, Geralt wouldn’t have been there to interrogate him about every detail of a potentially unknown species.

“Fuck,” Eskel muttered. He tugged against the tentacle holding his wrists, but it gave not at all. The monster was not only large, but strong, and fast enough to have knocked Eskel out. He stopped struggling, slumped in the thing’s grip. At least he’d be killed by something exotic, not taken down by a common drowner. But then again, the creature had made no move to kill him. Eskel had never heard of a monster stripping a victim before eating it, but perhaps this one had excessively nice tastes. No different than plucking a chicken.

“If you’re going to eat me, eat me,” he called, though he didn’t expect the request to have any effect.

Several of the tentacles rose up from the writhing mass and stretched towards him. Eskel closed his eyes. He hadn’t seen a mouth, and didn’t really wish to have an up-close view of how this monster consumed its prey.

One thin tentacle brushed gently down the side of Eskel’s face, tracing the scar. Others slid against his bare skin elsewhere: the puckered dip in his side from a griffin’s claw, the semi-circle on his left shoulder from a fleder bite, the raking parallel lines on his thigh where he’d been too slow dodging a swipe from a cockatrice. It touched Eskel gently, as if trying not to hurt him, though it still didn’t release its grip on his arms. Not typical monster behavior. And it had identified his scars too readily for it not to have at least a little intelligence.

“You can understand me?” he asked.

The creature gave no sign it had heard, but continued its slow exploration of Eskel’s body. The tentacles felt smooth to the touch as they played over his skin, prodding here and there as if to catalogue every inch of him. Calculating the most efficient way to rip him apart, perhaps, or considering which bit of him to eat first.

Then a particularly thin tentacle curled itself around the base of Eskel’s cock and cinched tight. Eskel choked back a grunt of surprise even as his cock gave an interested twitch. No one had touched Eskel that way in a long time, and likely no one would again without the incentive of a great deal of coin. He hadn't been prepared to feel such a surge of pleasure in the midst of a fight. Belatedly, he kicked out to try to dislodge the touch, but other tentacles circled his ankles and held them apart.

Fuck, the thing was strong. It didn’t seem to be exerting much effort to stretch Eskel out before it, completely immobile as its limbs explored freely. Incapacitated as he was, Eskel could do nothing but close his eyes and try to shut out the feel of the monster touching him, prodding into every nook and cranny of his body. The thin tentacle around his cock spiraled up the length, squeezing and releasing, but gently, not seeking to injure. Another, thicker limb pushed at Eskel’s mouth insistently. Eskel unclenched his teeth and let the thing push inside him, brushing delicately against his tongue and delving into his throat until he gagged. It drew back quickly to set up a simple pulsing motion, sliding its length in and out past his lips. A third, blunt tentacle prodded against Eskel’s ass, and that confirmed it.

 _Fucked to death by a tentacle monster. Gods, it had better fucking eat me after this._ Of course, Eskel should have known that Destiny wouldn’t let him off so easily, dying a clean death in battle. He deserved every last ounce of humiliation and pain wrung from him before he was allowed to slip into death. Geralt’s death probably hadn’t been quick, either.

Eskel squeezed his eyes shut and tried to go limp. Let the monster do what it wanted, and perhaps this would be over sooner. The tentacle prodded at his entrance, its end slick with some kind of viscous liquid. It twisted against Eskel’s hole, and his cock twitched in the grip of the other tentacle. It had been months since anything had touched him that wasn’t actively trying to kill him. And even if Eskel’s death was the eventual goal of this beast, still its touch was electrifying in its unexpected gentleness. He truly hadn’t expected to feel anything remotely this pleasant ever again.

“Is this not what you want?”

Eskel’s eyes flew open, scanning the dark forest urgently. There was no one there save the monster. But that had been Geralt’s voice.

“You’re quite handsome like this.”

Definitely Geralt’s voice. Those rich, familiar tones, that inflection were unmistakable. Eskel grunted around the tentacle stretching his mouth. He thrashed his head side to side, looking for the source of it, until another broad tentacle circled his head, covering his eyes and stilling his struggles.

“Am I wrong?” Geralt’s voice came closer, as if he were whispering in Eskel’s ear. “Are you not enjoying this?”

But Geralt was dead. This must be a hallucination, or just a trick of the mind. Maybe Eskel was dying after all, his brain suffering from lack of oxygen. _That’s embarrassing. Dying and losing my mind._

“You used to like being touched like this,” Geralt said. “I loved watching you, making you come undone.”

Eskel stopped moving completely as a cold prickle of fear shot through him. _This isn’t real._ But who else would know what he and Geralt had been to each other, had meant to each other?

“I know you. I’ve known what you like as long as you have.” The thin tentacle flicked at the head of Eskel’s cock, dragging a moan out of him. Geralt made a pleased humming sound. “In fact, I taught you a lot of what you like.”

 _You’re dead._ Geralt was dead, and Eskel hadn’t been there. In the end, he’d been of no use to Geralt whatsoever.

“Hush.” A tentacle stroked down his chest, as tender as any touch Eskel had ever felt. “I’m trying to make you feel good. It looks like you need it.”

Eskel shook his head as well as he could with it trapped in the grip of a tentacle. _Don’t deserve to feel good. I let you die._

“You weren’t even there. Do you think I’d want you to suffer because of that? Would I want to see you alone and wanting?” The tentacle around Eskel’s cock tugged skillfully, and another curled around his balls, gently caressing. “You deserve pleasure, Eskel. Won’t you let me give it to you?”

 _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ Eskel’s skin ached with the pure, animal pleasure of a warm, gentle touch. He would give anything, even his sanity, to have Geralt touch him again.

“Is that a yes?” Geralt asked as Eskel’s hips thrust up into the touch.

Geralt wasn’t here. This couldn’t possibly be a real conversation. But whether this was a hallucination, or a manipulation of the monster, or simply Eskel’s own overburdened mind, what did it matter? The only kind of contact Eskel could expect in the future was the touch of monsters he was trying to kill. He wasn’t fit company for anything human, and if this monster saw an opportunity to take its pleasure with Eskel, what harm would it be for Eskel to enjoy the process? He certainly couldn’t expect any other kind of intimacy ever again. And there was no one left to judge him.

_Yes._

The monster wrapped additional coils around Eskel, so strong and warm he could imagine the tentacle around his shoulders was Geralt’s arm, or the firm, possessive touches stroking down his thighs were Geralt’s fingers.

The tentacle pressing against his ass spewed more slick liquid and twisted itself further inside. Not too fast: it teased at his entrance the way Geralt used to, sliding just the tip in and pinning Eskel down so he couldn’t impale himself further, just to make Eskel beg, then plunging into him with a chuckle, pressing kisses to Eskel’s shoulders and fucking him just the way he liked it.

Or was that just the touch of a damp tentacle to his back? Eskel didn’t care. The monster’s thick appendage moved inside him, splitting him open wider than Geralt’s cock ever had.

“I love to watch you like this,” Geralt said. “The things you do to me.”

Eskel groaned around the tentacle in his mouth. He would do anything, take anything, if it would give Geralt pleasure. If Geralt would allow himself to receive pleasure. Of the two of them, perfect, noble Geralt deserved to feel every good thing his body had to offer.

“Wait, let me.” The tentacle unwound rapidly from Eskel’s cock, but immediately Eskel was enveloped by warm wetness as a firm, hot pressure, rather like a mouth, took him in to the root. The tentacle in Eskel’s ass shifted to rub him in just the right spot, and Eskel’s hips bucked forward as he shouted out his climax. The tentacle pulsed around his cock, as if swallowing down his issue.

“You want more, love?” Geralt whispered.

Eskel nodded weakly. The tentacles moved within and around him once again, and Eskel let himself fantasize as he would, about Geralt fucking his mouth, looking down at Eskel with a satisfied smirk; about Geralt squeezing handprint bruises into Eskel’s waist as he worked to give it to Eskel as hard as he wanted; about Geralt pinning Eskel to the bed in his room at Kaer Morhen and using his mouth to take Eskel apart, his expression so reverent and wondrous that Eskel had to look away from it lest his too-full heart burst.

Far from fighting, Eskel took everything the monster gave him, with Geralt’s enthusiastic encouragement spurring him on past the last of his endurance.

By the time the tentacle slid free of Eskel’s eyes to reveal the pale pink light of dawn, Eskel had lost track of his number of climaxes. He turned his head to ask Geralt, but Geralt was nowhere to be seen. Because Geralt was dead.

Eskel’s strangled noise of distress caused all the tentacles to withdraw, leaving his mouth free for gulping air, his limp cock raw and spent, and his stretched-wide hole leaking fluid onto the forest floor. He curled onto his side, squeezing his eyes closed. The soreness of his body was nothing to the aching of his heart. He lay there while pink light faded to yellow and melted the frost off the dead and fallen leaves.

When he opened his eyes again, the monster was still there, piled in its heap of coils in the center of the clearing. Eskel watched it sidelong as he stumbled over to the small stream to splash some water on his face and rub off the worst of the dirt, sweat, and other fluid. The monster picked up Eskel’s clothes with its tentacles and held them out.

“Thanks.” Eskel began pulling on his clothes, moving slowly with stiff muscles and the occasional sharp twinge of pain between his legs.

“The White Wolf will come here no more?” The voice sounded like a chorus of a dozen wraiths echoing inside Eskel’s head.

“No.” Eskel looked at the monster, and though it had no face or expression, he thought he heard sorrow in its voice that was at least some echo of his own. “He’s dead.”

The thing clenched all its tentacles in close and made a mournful sound, a bit like a howling wolf. Then it spread out again. Though it had no eyes, Eskel could have sworn it was looking at him. “You will come here again?”

“Maybe.” Yesterday, Eskel would have said the odds of him being anywhere a year from now were slim, but this hunt hadn’t gone exactly as he’d expected.

“But you liked it,” the monster said. Eskel thought Geralt’s voice, his put-on Rivian accent, may have been one of the many voices in which it spoke. “It felt good?”

“Wasn’t real,” Eskel said, buckling his armor back on with more force than necessary.

“Your memories are real, as are ours.” The monster reached a few sets of tentacles closer, but didn’t touch him. “We knew you already from the mind of the White Wolf. You were often in his thoughts.”

“Oh.” Eskel had known it had to be something like that. Not Destiny granting him a last taste of Geralt; only magic. “He’s dead.” It didn’t come out as flat and matter-of-fact this time. The words brought with them a lump that stopped his throat and shortened his breath.

One soft tentacle stroked Eskel’s hair and tucked a stray strand behind his ear. “We will mourn him, as you do.”

“Sure,” Eskel choked out. And that was about right. Eskel and a giant ugly tentacle monster, two of a fucking kind. But a creature like Eskel couldn’t be choosy about where he took his comfort, so he didn’t object when the monster wrapped two tentacles around Eskel’s chest and across his shoulders to squeeze him so tight he could barely breathe. The monster held him like that until Eskel scrubbed the back of his hand over his eyes and pulled away.

“So,” Eskel said as the tentacle monster pulled in all its coils, “I assume the townspeople don’t expect me to actually kill you.”

“No. Take this to the alderman. He will pay you.” A tentacle reached out, and dropped a small stone disk into Eskel’s hand. It was carved, or perhaps stamped, with the likeness of a snake curled in and over itself. Another tentacle presented Eskel with his swords, and Eskel accepted those, too. “Take care of yourself, witcher. We hope to see you again.”

“We’ll see,” Eskel said. “Maybe.” Strangely, it didn’t sound like a lie.

The alderman’s eyes widened as he saw Eskel marching back into town, his hair a little mussed, but otherwise not visibly injured or distressed.

“Here.” Eskel held out the stone disk, and the alderman reached out with trembling fingers to take it from his hand. “Your monster’s been dealt with.”

“I suppose so,” the man said, staring at the talisman, then at Eskel. “I’m impressed.”

“My fee?” Eskel said, one corner of his mouth quirking up.

“Oh! Yes, of course.” The alderman fumbled for a coin pouch, and counted out an extremely respectable bounty, which he handed over without complaint. “I suppose we’ll see you next year, then?”

“Perhaps.” Eskel gave a little bow and headed out of town. This contract would be enough to get him back to Daevon, where some luck at Gwent or the judicious application of Axii would allow him to retrieve Scorpion from his new owner. If he didn’t dally, he could make it to Kaer Morhen before the snows closed the passes.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] I Want No World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27005476) by [Chantress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chantress/pseuds/Chantress)




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